


Flirt with Death

by Bohemienne



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hades, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Gen, M/M, PWP without Porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26653561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bohemienne/pseuds/Bohemienne
Summary: Sylvbert-as-Thanzag Hades AU. No plot, no porn, just aesthetics and kissing and a whole lot of silly AU headcanons/kinassigning.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro (background), Sylvain Jose Gautier/Hubert von Vestra, Thanatos/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	Flirt with Death

**Author's Note:**

> No, seriously, no plot here
> 
> I didn't work in my other kinassigns so here they are:
> 
> Zeus - Claude  
> Ares - Felix  
> Athena - Annette  
> Aphrodite - Hilda  
> Dionysus - Raphael  
> Demeter - Lysithea  
> Artemis - Leonie  
> Hermes - Ignatz  
> Charon - Jeritza  
> Alecto - Dorothea  
> Tisiphone - Marianne

The bell tolls in the far reaches of Elysium, and Sylvain’s heart sinks.

“Gautier.”

Hubert appears in a swirl of smoke and scythes, an acrid miasma roiling off him like a strong whiskey that burns the back of Sylvain’s throat. Hubert, god of death, keeper of scores, and right hand to Edelgard, the goddess of the night. Sylvain’s been fortunate, thus far, to have Edelgard’s blessing in his quest to escape his father’s grasp. She, at least, understands the chains he’s trying to slip. He doesn’t expect Hubert to be quite so forgiving.

“Heeeey, Hubie,” he says, tilting his hand away to try to conceal the lance he’s carrying. “Weird finding you here, of all places. You know these folks are already dead, right?”

Hubert rolls his eyes, a poisonous green burning under a curtain of silver hair. “Who do you think put them there?”

Sylvain swallows. He’s had plenty of occasion to imagine just how Hubert reaps his grim harvest. Has dreamed of it, fantasized of it even, more than a few times. From the little he’s seen of Hubert training with Dimitri or Ingrid, he knows the man’s speed, lethality, relentlessness. He becomes the shadows themselves, and a sly wink of steel before gutting his foes. _Inevitable_ , Ingrid called him once, and from her, it was high praise.

How does one kill the prince of the dead, anyway? What becomes of him if Death were to slit his throat? Long before he knew the answer, he dreamed of luring him in, feeling that blade’s edge like a kiss. He’s since learned the only release from death, though, is death anew.

All the more reason he has to escape.

“Guess you’ve come, then, to collect.”

“Collect an insolent brat who’s wrecking my lady’s plans?” Hubert circles him, scythe tracing a path of shadow around them. “Yes, I suppose you could say that.”

“I don’t think that’s quite fair. Your lady’s helping _me_.” Sylvain pauses. “Unless you know otherwise.”

“She wants to end this senseless war and oppression, the feud between above and below. This . . . addiction, let us call it, to the blood of the titans and the whims of the gods.”

“And I happen to agree!—”

“—She does it for every mortal, even though she herself may not benefit from the result. Not selfishly, like you.” Hubert cuts narrowed eyes his way. “You only want to escape for yourself.”

It might not sting so bad if Linhardt hadn’t said as much, too, the last time Sylvain failed to escape. Yawning, he stretched up from his post alongside the reception line and managed to call Sylvain a selfish, clumsy fool—in not so many words—before pulling his eyemask down and dozing right back off.

And then Dimitri, so begrudging of Sylvain’s efforts to broker a truce between him and the shade Dedue he encountered his last trip through Elysium. _Our time together is long since passed, Dimitri_ mourned, refusing to meet Sylvain’s eye. _Leave him to his eternal peace free of my cursed presence._

And Ingrid, tending to the frayed wreckage of her whip Lúin from her last fight with Sylvain. _I’m just trying to do my job. The more you fight against the system, the more_ I’m _punished for it. Hardly seems fair, don’t you think?_

“I . . . I can’t help anyone else if I don’t know for myself what’s out there,” Sylvain finally manages to say. “If the things my father does, or the things they do on Olympus, truly harm the mortal world the way they hurt us—then I need to see that for myself.” He fixes his gaze on Hubert’s. “Please, Hubert. You know what’s out there. You see it all the time.” He swallows. “Shouldn’t I see the truth for myself, too?”

Hubert sighs, and looks away from him, letting his scythe arm go limp. “I suppose my word isn’t enough for you.”

“Or it inspired me to do my part.” He takes a tentative step toward Hubert, one hand reaching for his cheek. His skin is cool as marble, and nearly as pale, a stony pallor beneath the surface. “Believe me . . . I don’t want to do this without you. But I know how you are.” He bites his lower lip. “At the end of it all, you serve Edelgard alone.”

Hubert’s eyes are squeezed shut, like a door he can close on Sylvain. When he opens them, they’re far too wide. Vulnerable, in a way he never lets Sylvain see. “You didn’t even tell me goodbye.”

“Because I’d hoped that—well.” It sounds stupid now that he’s about to say it. “That you might decide to come with me.”

Hubert scoffs, and starts to pull away.

“Think about it. I know you have to serve your lady. But your work is largely above ground. I could help you, even. We could help each other up there. You harvest souls, and I find a way to save them.” He hates the pleading in his tone. “And then neither of us will be alone.”

Hubert sucks in his breath, like he’s about to retort with something sharp—but instead his lips seek out Sylvain’s.

The lance falls to the ground with a heavy thud as Sylvain’s hands bury in dark silk robes and he wrenches Hubert closer. Maybe he expected Hubert to taste of ash, or sulfur, but instead he’s like autumn’s bright array, every color he could dream of flashing for one last gasp before winter’s death. Hubert wraps his arm around Sylvain’s waist to hold him steady, to hold him, hold him in place, and as their tongues slide together, his soft sighs sound like _Stay_.

Sylvain noses against him as they part for air, and tugs one more greedy kiss from Hubert’s bottom lip. As beautiful and deathly pale as he is, he looks even more incredible with that rosy hint of rawness to his mouth and cheeks.

“If you make it to the surface,” Hubert breathes, “I’ll find you. I swear it.”

“And if I don’t?” Sylvain asks.

Hubert exhales. “Then I’ll find you all the same.”

“We can do this,” Sylvain says. “I swear it. Together we can set things right.”

We will.” His fingers curl against Sylvain’s cheek, surprisingly warm. “For my lady . . . and for you.”

And then Hubert is gone with a sweep of his scythe, and the fields of Elysium are a little colder.

Sylvain picks up the Lance of Ruin. His father’s cursed weapon, used to slay the titans, once upon a time. He should hate it, and a part of him does, the way it drinks blood, the way it breathes and moves with chthonic malevolence. But sometimes the instruments of your suffering must become the very things that free you from it.

He steadies himself, still flushed with Hubert’s kiss, and heads off to face King Ferdinand and Caspar, the Minos Bull, once more.

* * *

When Sylvain wades out of the pool of Styx at the entrance to the House of Gautier, it’s not Linhardt who greets him this time, but Hubert, leaning against one of Cerberus’s heads.

“Caspar?” he asks, then shakes his head. “No. The foul Agarthan cultists in the temple?”

“Lord Gautier,” Sylvain says.

Hubert glances over his shoulder to the empty desk where Gautier usually sits. “You saw the surface, then.”

“I know I can do this.”

Hubert smiles; steps forward to shake the last drops of blood from Sylvain’s blood-orange hair. “I know it, too. But for now, you’re back here . . . and I can’t be too sad.”

Sylvain reaches for his wrist, bringing Hubert’s hand down, and drawing it to his mouth to kiss his knuckles. “I can always try again tomorrow.”

Hubert watches him with a surprising sweetness and hopefulness on his face. How strange, to think the man who brings death to countless mortals can feel such a thing as _shy_. “And tonight?”

“Well, I could train with Dimitri . . . help Bernadetta tidy the lounge . . . maybe get my ass kicked by Ingrid again.”

Hubert’s eyes crinkle with a smile. “Or?”

“Or I did find this bottle of ambrosia. Perhaps we could split it in my room.”

“You know I detest bribery,” Hubert says, and Sylvain gently steers him away with a quick rub to Cerberus’s snout.

“I know, my lord of death.” He kisses the back of Hubert’s neck. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> [@Bohemienne6](http://twitter.com/Bohemienne6) to screech about Hades, Sylvbert, and whatever else


End file.
